Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities

Faulkner University’s Honors College offers a fully online Doctor of Philosophy for professionals hoping to enrich their higher education experience.

Program Objectives

The fully online Doctor of Philosophy provides an academic path to a career in Christian education and offers a challenging opportunity to expand your mind and experiences through a worldly perspective. Diverse students bring new perspectives to program coursework, helping to facilitate engaging and challenging discussions.

Program Design

Rooted in the Great Tradition of the Western World, the curriculum for the fully online Doctor of Philosophy program follows teachings from the Great Books of the Western Tradition to facilitate intellectual and spiritual engagement from students. Faulkner’s instructors are thought leaders who have proven credentials in the classroom, society and their field of research. Their Christian interpretation of philosophical studies and ideas help to facilitate collaborative and engaging discussion threads and conference calls.

The program includes:

A fully online platform

A foundation course that examines the history and philosophy of humane learning.

Degree Plan

Foundation Course (3 hours)

[accordion title=”HU 7311: Introduction to Humane Letters and Learning”]This course examines the history and philosophy of Humane learning using primary texts in whole and excerpts. Readings may include, but not necessarily be limited to: Ecclesiastes, Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon, Dante’s Paradiso, John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon, Bruni’s The Study of Literature, Guarino’s A Program of Teaching and Learning, Vico’s On Humanistic Education, and Barzun’s House of Intellect.[/accordion]

Core Courses (21 hours)

[accordion title=”FNA 8317: Examining Fine Arts: Great Ideas Reading”]This course examines the history and philosophy of the nature the arts using primary texts in whole and excerpts. Readings may include, but not necessarily be limited to: Aristotle’s Poetics, Augustine’s On Music, Goethe’s Poetry and Truth, Tolstoy’s What is Art?, Shaw’s Sanity of Art, Dewey’s Art as Experience, Adler’s Art and Prudence, Thiessen’s Theological Aesthetics: A Reader, and Scruton’s Beauty.[/accordion]

[accordion title=”HY 8315: Historical Investigations: Great Ideas, Authors and Writings”]This course examines select historical works from a philosophical and historical perspective using primary texts in whole and excerpts. Readings may include, but not necessarily be limited to: Old Testament (Joshua–Esther), Herodotus’s Histories, Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War, Plutarch’s Lives, Tacitus’s Annals, Acts, Huizinga’s Waning of the Middle Ages, and Dawson’s Dynamics of World History.[/accordion]

[accordion title=”LIT 7324: Literary Analysis: Great Ideas, Authors and Writings”]This course examines the history and philosophy of literary theory using primary texts in whole and excerpts. Readings may include, but not necessarily be limited to: Psalms, Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Poetics, Cicero’s De Oratore, Quintilian’s Institutio Oratori, Horace’s Ars Poetica, Longinus’s On the Sublime, Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, Dante’s Literature in the Vernacular, Sidney’s Apology for Poetry, and Blamires’s History of Literary Criticism.[/accordion]

[accordion title=”NMS 8328: Mathematical and Scientific Reasoning: Great Ideas, Authors and Writings”]This course examines the history and philosophy of mathematical and scientific reasoning using primary texts in whole and excerpts. Readings may include, but not necessarily be limited to: Plato’s Meno, Euclid’s Elements, Archimedes’s On the Equilibrium of Planes, Nicomachus’s Introduction to Arithmetic, Ptolemy’s Almagest, Kepler’s Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, Galileo’s Two New Sciences, Bacon’s Novum Organum, Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Huygens’s Treatise on Light, and Lavoisier’s Elements of Chemistry.[/accordion]

[accordion title=”SSC 7319: Great Ideas Readings: Reflection on Social Scientific Thought”]This course examines the history and philosophy of social thinking using primary texts in whole and excerpts. Readings may include, but not necessarily be limited to: Proverbs, Plato’s Phaedo, Aristotle’s On the Soul, Plutarch’s Of Bashfulness, James’s Principles of Psychology, Freud’s A General Introduction to Psycho-analysis, Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, Tawney’s Acquisitive Society, and Weber’s Essays in Sociology.[/accordion]

Interdisciplinary Seminars (9 hours)

[accordion title=”IDS 7301: Scholarly Inquiry and Writing in the Humanities”]This course examines postgraduate-level scholarly inquiry and writing in the humanities using primary texts in whole and excerpts and using contemporary research tools. Readings may include, but not necessarily be limited to Aristotle’s Poetics, Organon, and Rhetoric; Cicero’s On Invention and Rhetorica ad Herennium; Lucian’s How to Write History; Gadamer’s Truth and Method; Lewis’s “Meditation in a Toolshed” and “Bulverism”; Derrida’s Of Grammatology; and Barzun and Graff’s Modern Researcher. Contemporary research tools may include, but not necessarily be limited to Google Apps for Education, Google Books, and library databases.[/accordion]

[accordion title=”IDS 7310: Interdisciplinary (Humanities) Seminar”]This course consists of readings from a range of disciplines. Special attention is given to seeing connections and relationships between ideas, authors, and readings in this course. Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary readers are used in this course.[/accordion]

[accordion title=”IDS 8310: Interdisciplinary (Humanities) Seminar”]This course consists of readings from a range of disciplines. Special attention is given to seeing connections and relationships between ideas, authors, and readings in this course. Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary readers are used in this course.[/accordion]

Independent Tutorials (9 hours)

[accordion title=”8312, 8313, 8314 Independent Tutorials (HU/HY/LIT/PHL)”]This course is a focused study of an author, idea(s), problem, theme, specific topic, or historical era. The course will be designed between a student and tutor and will be approved by the Head of the College. Readings, intellectual goals, and research will be determined based on the student’s interests and course of study. The course can be taken four times (12 credit hrs. total) with different content.[/accordion]

Dissertation (6 hours)

[accordion title=”9301, 9302 Dissertation (HU/HY/LIT/PHL)”]The doctoral dissertation is the pinnacle of this academic program in Humane letters and learning. The dissertation must demonstrate serious engagement with the Great Tradition, manifest a broad understanding of the curriculum, and also show some level of unique interaction of the authors, ideas, and readings studied in the program.[/accordion]

Total Hours: 48

Admission Requirements

Prospective students who wish to enroll in the Doctor of Philosophy program must meet the following admission requirements:

A completed graduate application

A master’s degree from a regionally accredited institution. You must provide transcripts from all institutions attended.

A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.25 on a 4.0 scale.

Acceptable graduate test score on graduate admissions exams, including the GRE (a combined verbal and quantitative score of 297 or above) or MAT (400 or above) taken within the last 5 years. This requirement may be waived for students holding master’s degrees in related fields.

Three letters of recommendation with specific comments regarding the applicant’s academic work, professional experience and ability to successfully complete graduate study. These letters are typically from the applicant’s previous instructors or supervisory personnel.

A statement of personal goals that identifies how the Doctor of Philosophy program will contribute to those goals (400-500 words).